Political Crossfire Forums

The number of people that have to buy insurance now increased by 2.6million (1500%) and we only see a 50% drop for 17k people. Sounds like the insurance companies will be getting rich.

It's basically saying for every person who sees their insurance cost drop 150 people will see theirs go up.

"Supporters of the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act, credited the drop in rates to the online purchasing exchanges the law created, which they say are spurring competition among insurers that are anticipating an influx of new customers. The law requires that an exchange be started in every state."

This is just a lie. I'm sure that helped reduce rates slightly, but that's not responsible for anything close to a 50% drop. California and Oregon are doing similar things and their rates haven't moved nearly as much.

"The state required insurers to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, but did not require everyone to purchase insurance — a feature of the new health care law — and did not offer generous subsidies so people could afford coverage. "

This is the real reason rates went down. Sucks for the young and healthy but i think we can all see the societal benefit to lower rates for all.

One thing that is now weird is that it truly is competitive to buy health insurance on the private market. I haven't done my research yet, but a co-worker yesterday was mentioning how it might make more sense for someone like myself to forgo health benefits from my employer, and instead recieve stock options or flexible spending accounts, and then simply purchase the cheapest plan on the private market.